This blog is dedicated to treating everyone - clients, prospects, friends, and family - as valuable partners. We should show them our gratitude through all our actions, including our marketing.

October 9, 2016

How It Should Work

Over and over again I have suggested, implored, and taught
business owners to meet others one-on-one and get to know them before
attempting to sell them anything. People purchase from those whom they know,
like, and trust. They also refer business to those whom they know, like, and
trust. How can anyone fit into that scenario if we don’t get to know them and
allow them to know us first?

In the past weeks I met another business person on LinkedIn who
is not located in my immediate geographical area. We had a great conversation
via telephone (yes, we actually spoke with each other in lieu of texting) and
agreed to meet face-to-face when I was planning to travel closer to where he is
located. He was definitely in agreement with the philosophy to get to know each
other better without “selling” to each other.

So, we planned, and executed a coffee shop meeting in his
geographical area and had an excellent chat with each other. We talked about
how we came to where we are in business, our personal lives, and what we were
looking to accomplish in our futures. We discussed common ground areas in
business, business philosophy, and how we deal with mutual challenges. We got
to know each other better than we could have otherwise.

We did share the details of what we do in business and gave
each other examples of opportunities which might interest each other. These
included networking opportunities, actual business opportunities, and shared
knowledge about specific items of importance. It was an excellent example of
the type of meeting that should always take place between business people who
have recently met and want to build a relationship which should help move each
other to have success.

This type of meeting requires some work on the part of the
participants. We did some research on each other prior to the meeting,
including reviewing each other’s LinkedIn profiles, websites, business history,
and any other material available. Based on what we learned from this research,
and our previous telephone conversation, we had a running start for our one-on-one
conversation.

As business owners, all of us must develop new prospects and
move those prospects to the category of customers and even further to become
clients. Can we benefit from people who are not our customers, perhaps not even
prospects for whatever products or services that we offer? Of course we can;
they can become networking partners who advise us, suggest opportunities to us,
and refer others to us who are prospects for us and whatever we do offer. This
is just the group to which Gratitude Marketing is so applicable, in
addition to being appropriate for our customers.

Gratitude Marketing means that we develop
relationships with other people who may be prospects for our businesses and who
can benefit from whatever we offer. Gratitude Marketing also means developing
relationships with those who may never become our prospects or customers but
will assist us in building our business success. They are our networking
partners and our mutually benefiting relationship is the essence of great
business. Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.